IHSW & Other Things In Life

Good morning!  Let's start off with the most important news, shall we?  I had a successful IHSW in that I not only finished stitching my Stacy Nash (not without some bits of aggravation ... more about that later) but I started something new as well!  I guess I have become a chain stitcher.  I remember hearing some people referred to as "chain smokers" ... they smoke continuously, lighting their new cigarette off the one they are ready to snuff out.  Well, it seems I am the same way when it comes to stitching.  No sooner do I put the last stitch into one project than I grab another one to start.  A much better vice than smoking, for sure   : )

I am proud to have finished this Seek Joy In All Things Pinkeep Pillow by Stacy Nash although it was sometimes frustrating & sometimes boring (that honkin' big block of house in the center) although I tried to entertain myself whilst working on that house.  It occurred to me that "Stacy Nash" had the same amount of syllables & rhymed perfectly with the title of an old song ... "Monster Mash."  So there I sat, stitching on that big honkin' block of house, bored out of my wits, singing!

She did the Nash!

She did the Stacy Nash!

The Stacy Nash!

It was a stitching smash!

She did the Nash!

It stitched up in a flash!

She did the Nash!

She did the Stacy Nash!

If I put my mind to it I know I could come up with complete lyrics, perhaps get permission from the original people involved with the song to parody it, hire musicians & someone who can do a good Boris Karloff impersonation, record it, & send the demo to Stacy to use as background music on her website, let's say ... or it could be played during her introductions as teacher at stitching retreats, etc.  I am even seeing a pretty good music video here.  Thus travels your mind when you are faced with a big honkin' block of house to complete.  Anyway, here it is.

Wow!  What a lousy photo!  I surprise myself sometimes with just how horrible my photos can be.  Oh well, I shall continue on.  Those of you with sharp eyes (eyes that can make clearness out of blurriness) will see I stitched this design using 1 over 2.  I did that on purpose for a more primitive effect.  You may also see that I changed the color of the bird's beak.  Stacy wanted it to be a funky kind of green.  I don't think so Stacy!  Okay ... so I'm stitching along, purposely saving that big honkin' block of house for last.  Actually I saved the date for last but we'll get back to that.  When it came time to start the house, I stitched the roof, began the brickwork, & started the windows.  I stitched the front of this house in thirds ... the left brick area & 2 windows first, then the center brick area with 1 window & the door, & then started on the right side of the house.  The first thing I noticed was that the Stacy wanted me to put 6 "bricks" (stitches) to the right of those windows & I only had room for 5 (following in line with the roof).  I then looked at the left side of the house.  It had only 4 stitches.  Why oh why oh why did she not do 4 stitches on the right AND the left sides ... or 6 stitches on both sides ... but no, one side has 4 stitches & the other has 6.  Go figure.  Due to my sometimes extreme OCD, this drove me crazy!  However, "fixing" it to make each side have an even number of bricks was going to be a lot of work & I didn't want to spend any more time on this big honkin' block of house than I had to so I decided 4 bricks on one side & 5 bricks on the other side would have to do.  Sadly my OCD at this point was indeed extreme & it forced me to go back & see where I had made the mistake resulting in only having room for 5 bricks instead of 6 in that area.  Naturally I first investigated the roof thinking I must've counted wrong & positioned the chimneys incorrectly thus resulting in the roof being 1 stitch less wide thus resulting in the 5 bricks rather than 6 dilemma.  I counted.  I counted again.  That wasn't it.  I then looked at the reindeer above the roof & counted from the chimney up.  The chimney was positioned exactly where it was supposed to be underneath that deer.  ARGH!  Where's that error???  Where-where-where???  I then concentrated on the reindeer & there it was ... somehow when stitching that critter I miscounted & this resulted in the reindeer stitch that is supposed to match up to the first stitch of that chimney matching perfectly but being "off" by one stitch resulting in room for only 5 bricks.  Well, my OCD was bad but not bad enough for me to try to fix this so I continued.  The discovery of the error, however, so frustrated me that I forgot to change the color of my floss for the top right windowpanes.  The panes in that window are supposed to be the same funky green color Stacy wanted the bird's beak to be.  I thought "how cute is that!"  I thought it could kind of represent the rest of the house slumbering peacefully while the woman of the house was in her little stitching room getting in a few more stitches before joining her family in dreamland.  HA!  It was not to be.  I told myself that she got fed up stitching a project with a big honkin' block of house in the center of it & decided to just call it a night.  

You won't need real sharp eyes for this next "forced error" but anyone familiar with this pattern will know that the date is supposed to be 1802, not 1822.  I had no problems stitching the 18 & getting it to look nice but I can't tell you how many times I tried stitching that 02 with vomity results.  If by this time I had CARED I would have played with figuring out numbers that would (A) be particularly meaningful to me & (B) matched the style of the other numbers.  However, at this point I just wanted to get the stupid thing done & since the 2 wasn't stitching up too badly I decided to go with 22.  

One more thing about this project.  I stitched it on a mystery piece of linen that I received in a swap.  I didn't notice until I had started stitching that there was a great, big, fat flaw in the linen in one area ... almost like a hole.  A sloppy hole if that makes any sense.  Like "Oh look!  Shirlee must've poked her scissors through here.  Boy, is she stupid!  Why does she even bother trying to stitch anything!  She ruins everything she gets her hands on!"  You get the idea.  Since I had already started the project & had completed enough stitching to not want to just toss it out I continued to stitch hoping that big honkin' block of house would perhaps cover that holey area & hide it.  No such luck.  Because of the lousy photo I don't think you will be able to see this area even if you enlarge it but there it is ... right underneath the 22, right above the peacock's tail, to the right of the house.  I hoped it would sort of "disappear" when I pressed the piece before photographing it.  No such luck.  Now I'm hoping it will disappear when I adhere some iron-on interfacing to the back of it.  Maybe I'll just use it for a dust rag.

I don't think I took more than a few breaths between finishing Stacy & starting a new one & here it is!

Doesn't look like much, does it   : )   This is probably all you're going to see of it for a while as it's my next RAK & I can't let the cat out of the bag before it is finished & received.  I will, however, tell you it's not a cat design   : ) 

In a little over an hour John & I are going to head off to Lexington.  I have a doctor appointment at 3:30 but we are going up early so I can get an eye exam, order new glasses, & run a few errands before seeing her.  I got dressed for the excursion when I got up this morning, sat down here to read emails & check blogs & then something very sad happened.  My waistband was cutting off my circulation so I had to go back to the closet to pull out my "fat pants."  After losing 70 pounds last year I only lost one clothing size which will forever baffle & anger me but I didn't think I'd ever wear those fat pants again & actually had them sitting on a pile of junk in the corner of the bedroom with plans for some sort of disposal.  Luckily my lack of motivation these past many months has made me neglect doing anything with that pile of junk so the pants were still there & are now comfortably gracing my "gained 25 pounds back again" body.  I have "resuming diet" marked down on my list of things to discuss with my doctor.  However, I also have "chocolate chip pound cake" marked down on my shopping list for Whole Foods.  I need professional help!  But not until I eat that pound cake   : )